Last week, we discussed how the demand for fake qualifications has grown exponentially especially in the aftermath of education reforms.
What I mean by “fake” here encompasses doctored qualifications, qualifications bought like a commodity at a price and qualifications attained via easier paths without having to go through the real grind.
We will discuss each of these shortly. Last week, we also focused on university graduation ceremonies and how these feature as key milestones in every child’s life.
The significance of graduation ceremonies is not confined to the child alone as there is a family, the clan and a whole cadre of people who look on with pride and a deep sense of achievement whenever someone linked to them ascends to that podium and graduates.
Let us talk about the teacher-student relationship first before moving to fake qualifications.
The teacher-student relationship
The teacher has traditionally been the second most important, influential and respected person in the lives of children after their parents.
That respect for the teacher has mainly emanated from societal reverence for education and the key role it plays in the path to a successful life.
I still remember my teachers with respect; some of them with both respect and fondness.
Sister Paula Christine, Master John Olsen and Master Sakiusa Sing (Wairiki Secondary School) plus Master Narendra Prasad and Mrs Ratna Naidu (Indian College) fall into this latter category.
Sadly, Master Sakiusa left us more than 15 years ago, but I am still in touch with three of my other four teachers.
You might ask where the fondness entered the relationship.
With Master Sakiusa, it was a deep respect for his leadership and the example that he set for all of us.
There is no arguing that he was a strict disciplinarian, but he was also proof that a strict teacher could be thought of with love and fondness by the very students he kept in check with his famous colour coded hosepipes.
Sister Paul was a teacher who left us with the English language legacy that we still carry. We still know what a noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, etc. are.
And we know what a correct English sentence looks like. Sister Paul was the first person to talk to us about Watergate and president Nixon when I was in Form 1, and she took us for current affairs classes.
Master John Olsen was the one who challenged us the most.
He varied his classes by introducing bits of history whenever he felt that we were wavering in focus.
He was an American volunteer and so talked about the two wars and the history of the US and Britain.
So much of the general knowledge that we strive for these days, came to us through Master John.
He is the person who aroused in me a profound quest for knowledge through whatever means possible.
If I started reading newspapers at an early age, it was because of him.
If I asked too many questions of adults, it was because of him.
I became a national quiz rep at the unlikely age of 13 because of Master John Olsen.
Master Narendra Prasad and Mrs Ratna Naidu came into the picture in a slightly different manner.
When I moved to Indian College from Wairiki Secondary School, the aim was to do pure science so that I could later pursue a degree in medicine.
Two of my cousins were studying in India at the time and both advised that my future lay in that direction.
Both cousins married doctors a few years later.
Master Narendra Prasad and Mrs Ratna Naidu were instrumental in easing me into the sciences.
Both took an early interest in me and realised that I could excel if provided the right guidance.
Later, I took a group of students to help at Master Narend’s wedding in Nausori.
The rest is history, but each of these teachers’ contributions remain with me as I continue to navigate through life.
When I became a teacher later, I was acutely conscious of the types of differences I could make for my students. I do not wish to blow my own trumpet and leave it to my students to gauge my performance and talk about it.
What I can say is that in my view the journey of a student through education is a joint enterprise between the student and the teacher.
As soon as students register for a course, they signal a clear intention to gain from and pass that course.
It, therefore, becomes incumbent on the student and the teacher to ensure that this target is achieved.
Good teachers know that there are little prods and tunings used to get the students to exceed their own expectations.
I have so many stories to share in this regard.
There is nothing like seeing that triumph and sense of accomplishment that envelopes graduands during the graduation ceremony. The teacher also basks quietly in that accomplishment.
I remember during my early days as a staff at USP how a colleague used to strut around crowing that he had one of the highest failure rates in his discipline.
One day he pressed the wrong button in me, and I asked him: “Doesn’t it trouble you that you have the highest failure rate?”
His response: “Why, isn’t it what they should be worried about?” I was momentarily stupefied by this response.
It was clear that he did not view education as a joint undertaking between the teacher and the student.
In his conceptualisation, it was the teacher’s role to teach the course, set strict assessments and apply all the rules as strictly as possible so that only the very “deserving” passed.
He obviously felt a delicious sense of achievement when a large number failed.
This type of superior-inferior, us and them, framework in the teaching and learning environment has long been discredited.
The teacher’s sense of achievement and satisfaction should come from the percentage of passes that his students achieve. In fact, a higher level of satisfaction comes from the types of grades that students score.
In the recent case of visually challenged Josaia Suqesuqe, I recall vividly when I first encountered him in my tutorial class.
He was sitting up in front displaying all the signs of an alert student who was eager to ask questions.
At the end of that first class, I spoke to him and assured him that he had every right to raise questions if anything that I taught wasn’t clear.
Then I spoke to him in Fijian and told him where I was from and who I was. This brought about a relieved smile of deep gratitude for my concern. He passed my course even though it has always had a relatively high failure rate because of its mathematics content.
Later, I encountered Jo at the BSP Bank branch in Damodar City.
We were lined up in different queues.
As soon as I said, “Jo, bula,” his face lit up instantly as he recognised me and responded, “ni bula qasenivuli.”
Jo remembered who I was because we had worked together in that course two years earlier.
He knew what we had been through and how I had helped him achieve his target.
Well, Josaia Suqesuqe is a now a graduate with a proud degree in commerce.
And I look at him as a proud product whom I had helped along the way in whatever way I could.
There are many more who have either gone through us or will come through us. The true legacy of teachers lie in the manner in which their students remember them.
A fond and respectful recall is a target only some teachers can achieve.
We will talk about fake qualifications next week. Till then, sa moce toka mada.
Dr Subhash Appanna is a senior USP academic who has been writing regularly on issues of historical and national significance. The views expressed here are his alone and not necessarily shared by this newspaper or his employers. Email: subhash.appana@usp.ac.fj
